Guild Wars 2

Greetings forum goers!

I’m a huge fan of GW2, but I haven’t been able to really play a lot since a few weeks after release due to my daughter being born. I’ve also been obsessed with League of Legends for way too long…

However, I have recently been trying to emulate the playstyle of a champion from League of Legends with my level 35 Thief, but not sure exactly how to go about it. My goal is to have a similar playstyle to Vayne from League of Legends (here’s a youtube vid of the best Vayne player in the world in action…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shpA2ed3I40).

As you can see from the video, Vayne deals plenty of damage over time, but she does it in a way that is highly evasive. Sustained damage, evasion, and survivability.

I’ve already determined that for the playstyle to work the best, I need to build my Thief in a manner that is focused more on conditions, mobility, and a bit of stealth. I am also thinking I wanna build in some survivability, because initiative and endurance limit how long you can “dodge” around, meaning at some point, without the burst common in most Thief builds, I’m gonna need some serious survivability.

My current build is as follows…

Pistol/Dagger for constant application of bleeds, and for a tactically retreating shadowstep on the dual skill. In addition, I get a nice AoE slow and a stealth on the off-hand Dagger for more kiting/trickery.

Shortbow for consistent AoE damage, Bleeds, and Poisons; as well as another tactical retreat. I also get good chasing potential with Shadow Shot.

I have decided to use Hide in Shadows for my heal spell, because it gives me another evasion tool. I take Assassin Signet, Roll for Initiative, and Signet of Agility for increased base stats, bursty damage enhancers, and an extra evasion tool. Finally, I take Thieves Guild to cause even more damage over time without putting myself into melee range with Dagger Storm.

Where I’m stuck is the traits to pick to best compliment this concept I’m trying to achieve. I’m currently looking at 10 Deadly Arts, 30 Acrobatics, and 30 Trickery for all the condition, mobility, and survivability buffs. But I can’t decide which Major Traits to choose based on my skills and the concept I’m aiming for.

Currently testing out the following Major Traits:

Deadly Arts – Mug (deal damage when stealing)

Acrobatics – Power of Inertia (Might when dodging), Assassins Reward (Heal for each Initiative spent), Quick Recovery (2 Initiative every 10 seconds)

Trickery – Uncatchable (Caltrops when dodging), Ricochet (chance for pistol shots to bounce), Hastened Replenishment (gain initiative when healing)

This would allow me to “double dip” into survivability, endurance regen (minor traits), and also initiative regen. This seems like an ideal setup to be highly mobile, constantly putting out sustained DPS (specifically via conditions), and some pretty nice survivability as well.

My current single-target combination might look something like this…

Dodge to gain damage amp from the Minor Trait “Fluid Strikes”. Steal from target, inflicting “Mug” and “Serpent’s Touch”. Use “Cloak and Dagger” to stealth, use “Sneak Attack” to stack bleeds, and then “Shadow Strike” away. Proceed to evade, dodge, stealth, and use Pistol and Shortbow to wear down target while popping signets and “Thieves Guild” where appropriate.

Have any of you avid Thief players attempted to do something similar? What kind of setup did you use?

Thanks in advance for any help you might give!

If you’re looking to be evasive strictly in the sense of having dodges, that’s one thing. However, I would advise dropping Acrobatics down to 15, trickery to 20 and pick up plenty of Shadow Arts. Good options here are Cloaked in Shadow, Hidden Thief, Shadow’s Embrace, Shadow Rejuv., and probably some others I’m forgetting. Pick up lots of deception utils, and you’ll be a real pain to track / hit.

I would also drop Deadly Arts, as P/D direct damage is not the greatest anyways, and if you spec your amulet / armor for direct damage, you’ll be missing out on the best part of P/D: bleed damage.

Jericho.4521:

If you’re looking to be evasive strictly in the sense of having dodges, that’s one thing.

First off… Thanks for the reply! I really appreciate your thoughts, and I am going to test out some of your suggestions…

I (currently) enjoy mobility and kiting over stealth…seeing as the stealth is limited by a timer now, but mobility is only limited by the initiative and endurance regen rates/traits. Because of that, Shadow Arts was never that appealing to me…this playstyle I’m trying to achieve is all about choosing when to jump in for the steal/stealth/shadowstep away combo and the rest of the time, you’re trying to stay at range and keep the conditions up.

However, I would advise dropping Acrobatics down to 15, trickery to 20 and pick up plenty of Shadow Arts. Good options here are Cloaked in Shadow, Hidden Thief, Shadow’s Embrace, Shadow Rejuv., and probably some others I’m forgetting. Pick up lots of deception utils, and you’ll be a real pain to track / hit.

Hmm… Interesting advice. I think I’ll have to try both methods, but I recently tried a build with as much stealth as I could slot (I think I was up to like…7 stealth options…memory probably isn’t serving me well there, though), and I wasn’t much of a fan of it, specifically with melee channels that still hit me after entering stealth.

It seemed to me that stealth as a concept is awesome at dropping attention, but doesn’t actually prevent people from continuing to come after you, or bursting you down during the time your stealth was on c/d (I think the timer is 1-2 sec?).

I would also drop Deadly Arts, as P/D direct damage is not the greatest anyways, and if you spec your amulet / armor for direct damage, you’ll be missing out on the best part of P/D: bleed damage.

I wasn’t going to spec for direct damage…the 5 points in Deadly Arts is for the 10 sec poison on stealing, which is a core part of any rotation against a single target (in theory, anyway). Not to mention the increased duration of the conditions. I just don’t know if increased duration is worth it or not.

Thoughts on my responses to your suggestions?

Well its clear that Pistol in main hand is a condition weapon and dagger in off hand is a stealth based weapon becouse of CnD and this weapon combination is by far the best stealth combo there is atm. What i would advise you and what im using myself now is to go 30 in shadow arts, 20 in acrobatics and 20 in trickery. You can take 5 points from trickery and put in deadly arts if u want that 10 s poison on steal. But 30 points shadow arts is just too good not to take since it offers you loads of survivability options such as increased stealth time, condition removal every 3 seconds, health regeneration in stealth, aoe blind on stealth and initiative return on stealth skill use, these are probablly the best ones, at least for me. Best heal for this would be hide in shadows, simply becouse it puts you in stealth puting you in position for another sneak attack and cures damaging conditions. I wouldnt go more then 20 in acrobatics and trickery couse 25 point skills in there ( same as in dealy arts) doesnt increase condition damage, only direct damage. From Acrobatics i would recomend fleet shadow ( increases speed while stealthed WHEN in combat) or descent of shadows (priceless in www jumping down from walls or mauntains). Pain responce is great for survival and if u like that mobility u will want vigorous recovery whch gives vigour boon upon healing, that will let u dodge it all In trickery tree uncatchable is best trait there is, caltrops doesnt stay long, but if enemy is not moving it will stack up some descent cripple time + bleeds. bountifull theft would allso fit your evasive playstyle, since it gives you vigor on steal, so with vigourous recovery you would have vigor for the most of fight. As for utilities I would use caltrops, shadow refuge or spider venom and signet of shadows ( cant play w/o it, gotta love that speed ). Thieves guild is by far best thiefs elite skill together with dagger storm, but direct damage thieves get more from dagger storm then condition thieves imo.

Well, I think you’re right about stealth when it comes to defenses, no matter what people are going to try to kill you. However, it’s also crucial to P/D offense, because sneak attack is definitely our hardest hitter with that build.

Therefore, if your only method of stealthing is your heal or CnD, a smart player will prevent you from landing your CnD often, which can cut your DPS by a lot, and eventually get you killed. Your only other option then would be to blow your heal if you’re running HiS. Even having 2 or 3 more ways to stealth in a fight can pretty dramatically affect how quick you can drop someone.

Also, I guess I didn’t mean drop Deadly Arts completely, just down to the minor trait. I also like that minor a lot, but mug is not really as useful on this build IMO. Plus, with only 5% extra condition duration, that will round to a whole 6 seconds if you use the typical 2x centaur, 2x krait, 2x afflicted runes. This frees up one of your weapon sigils, as you would no longer need sigil of Agony for the full duration (Bleed only ticks damage on full seconds, don’t know if you know or not). So that’s a nice bonus.

When it comes to www usually there are more targets around to cnd that are much easier to use it on then your actual target, other enemys for example that you are not curently blasting at wont be so aware of you and will be easier to CnD on, or mobs which are plenty in www and are perfect for stealthing.
As for bleed time i would go for full 8 seconds ( my testing proved that this is cap for pistol bleed (100 % increase), since it will let u stack more bleeds that way, becouse it will take longer to fall off ( bleeds dont fall of all at once, they fall of stack by stack and bleed time slows it down), what will directly increase preasure on your target.

P/D is good, especially for WvW and PvP but DPS is lower than other options. If you’re looking at PvE I would suggest D/D 0/20/0/20/30. This is a Deathblossom build that can stack and maintain a bunch of Bleeds. Basically throw up a bunch of bleeds with Deathblossom, hit your Signet heal and toss more out. Lots of Initiative regen and the ability to keep your bleeds stacked. Key traits are Signet Use and Hastened Replenishment, couple this with Signet of Malice for 6 initiative every 12 seconds. Throw on the other Initiative regen traits and you’ll rarely be out of initiative. This build lacks the stealth but you still have available in a pinch.

Utilities are Blinding Powder, Shadow Refuge and Signet of Shadows(replace this with others per need)

Gear up with all Carrion gear and get yourself some Super Veggie Pizzas or the rare version for increased duration. Runes of the Nightmare are good here or Afflicted+Krait work well too. More condition duration = more damage per initiative. With DB every 10% gives an additional tick of damage, with Sneak Attack from P/ every 25% gives an extra second. Bleeds do their damage in 1 second intervals. With runes and food alone I can kick up my Bleed damage by 60% or so.

What’s nice here also is that this gear set will support P/D 0/0/30/20/20.

Deathblossom evades so you won’t get hit while the animation is rolling. So run in, throw your DB’s and dodge away. Trait for Caltrops on Dodge and they will apply more bleeds and damage. You will also trait Vigorous Recovery which gives Vigor when you activate your Signet which gives you more dodge and caltrops.

Great for PvE but not as good for WvW and PvP as one condition removal can drop all your bleeds. You can however be effective in PvP with this build if you know how to manage your DB’s.

This is my main build, give it a try

Blood~

Wow, thanks for all the input, guys!

I think I’ll have to just try out these suggestions to see what I like.

I really like the concept of poison field into sneak attack with pistol because of the 5x stacking of the poison…that’s brutal…I hadn’t even thought about it!

In case some of you can’t tell, I’m still fairly “new” to the game. I’ve followed it obsessively, but was unable to really get some buddies to play with regularly, then didn’t have much play time, so…fell out of the game @ level 30 til a week or two ago, when I decided to jump back in.

Thanks again for all the tips, and I’ll use this as a good resource for builds to test out!

For more evasion, if you dont mind to drop some condition duration, you can also slot Vigerous Recovery and use Runes of the Adventurer in your armor. That combination gives you 50% endurance and vigor when you use a heal, if you now combine it with withdraw, you get all that on top of healing, removing an immobilize and dodging and you will be able to pretty much dodge 8 times in a row. That way you can dodge much more often, espeacily dodging after you used CnD on an enemy so you avoid stray hits.

If you love diversity you can even try out a hybrid build with D/D and P/D as against some enemies your P/D sneak attack wont work and in PvE bleeds are capped at 25 stacks aswell.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAqY4YlYmiOndy9E9JFx+hdy9woOtp+C6Uw14D;ToAKtMaJ0yqlTLpWLCGBspYSB
You would just need to get crit jewelry/daggers and condition armor/pistol/dagger to get halfway decent stats in crit and condition. But you wont shine with conditions and your crit damage could be much better aswell, for that you can adapt to situations better.

Another possible way to spec for not so big fights could be one revolving around shortbow.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAV4alYmiO3dy9E95Ex2jeqTe6pgsjtTBX1KA;TYAA2CnsoYYxugJFA

It gives you sustained DPS from clusterbombing and your autoattack and as soon as your target drops below 50% health, you get quickness and fury. You have alot of stunbreakes with withdraw and shadowstep and even heal for every initiative used.
The weaponset D/P provides you with stealth with blackpowder+heartseeker and headshot if you need to interrupt things like stomps.
Shortbow also allows you to dodge away alot with disable shot, which even cripples your enemy and clusterbomb even has a nice synergy with your teams combo fields.
That and your 21k health (try to get high health) would even help you alot to soak up some hits.